Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus
05 Jun 2020, 8:18 am
This paper was derived from a new state up company called Surgisphere. As of June 4th both the Lancet paper and an additional paper using the same database published in the New England Journal of Medicine have been retracted because the co-authors were not allowed to see the data for review.
One of the significant differences between science and religion is that science stakes it claims on verifiable facts, not merely on belief and faith, which are important in their own right. There is increasing evidence that peer-review is not infallible; this “study” on hydroxychloroquine may well be another example.
Science is grounded on repeatability of results. This health study appears to be one where the data is simply analyzed, and there is no way to establish the underlying truth of the dataset itself.
Source: Controversy Follows The Lancet's Hydroxychloroquine Study
The difference between science and faith is that science is founded on systematic doubt and constant re-checking of existing knowledge.
Hydroxychloroquine studies are just one example of this general paradigm. Even the original Lancet study itself pointed out weaknesses of their approach.
Unfortunately, when a prominent but controversial political figure expresses some belief, partial results suggesting he might be right or wrong become politically charged, which makes the whole process much harder.
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Let's not confuse being normal with being mentally healthy.
<not moderating PPR stuff concerning East Europe>
06 Jun 2020, 7:47 am
An article today discussed two important topics. It smashed them together. Good article, so I will break these two observations apart.
Hydroxychloroquine
So Lancet, with egg on its face, a renowned journal, is suddenly withdrawing a study on hydroxychloroquine. The database by Surgisphere Corp. of Chicago was used in an observational study of nearly 100,000 patients that appeared May 22 in The Lancet, an influential medical journal. The study tied the malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to a higher risk of death in hospitalized patients with the virus.
The validity of the data, however, has been called into question. The Guardian reports that Surgisphere “has so far failed to adequately explain its data or methodology” and says the company’s “handful of employees appear to include a science fiction writer and an adult-content model.”
The only question is whether the malaria drugs work. "Does hydroxychloroquine actually work early in the game to help decrease the symptoms of COVID-19? It's been studied in the lab as an antiviral," Dr. Marc Siegel said. "Medical, we don't know yet. Political, we know this is a political hit job."
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Changing Coronavirus Virility
Doctors at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) said Thursday that the coronavirus appears to be declining both in virulence and in its infection rate.
"The virus appears to be getting milder. People who are being admitted have milder symptoms. We heard the same thing out of northern Italy," Dr. Marc Siegel said. "And guess what? I have been hearing the same thing from many doctors here in New York City over the past week or two."
"Viruses, like anything else, want to survive. Now, I'm not sure yet that this is the case, but as viruses mutate over time, they want to get more used to the human host. They want to be able to spread more easily," Dr. Marc Siegel said. "And if they kill the host, they can't spread. So they tend to mutate in the direction of becoming milder. It looks like this may be happening here."
Source: Dr. Marc Siegel on faulty hydroxychloroquine data: 'This is a political hit job'
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Author of Practical Preparations for a Coronavirus Pandemic.
A very unique plan. As Dr. Paul Thompson wrote, "This is the very best paper on the virus I have ever seen."
06 Jun 2020, 8:13 am
The head of a hospital in Milan, Italy claims the novel coronavirus no longer exists in the country — clinically speaking, that is. “In reality, the virus clinically no longer exists in Italy,” Alberto Zangrillo, head of the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, told RAI television, according to the New York Post. “The swabs that were performed over the last 10 days showed a viral load in quantitative terms that was absolutely infinitesimal compared to the ones carried out a month or two months ago.” Another doctor, Matteo Bassetti, the head of the infectious diseases clinic at the San Martino hospital in Genoa, echoed Zangrillo.
Source: Coronavirus in Italy 'clinically no longer exists,' doctor says
_________________
Author of Practical Preparations for a Coronavirus Pandemic.
A very unique plan. As Dr. Paul Thompson wrote, "This is the very best paper on the virus I have ever seen."
06 Jun 2020, 11:57 am
IMHO it seems to me that the virus is not genetically changing or getting less viral. But rather as we move from winter into spring and summer, the increased sunlight and increased humidity levels are better able to destroy the virus. Thus the viral loads are being reduced. Individuals are still coming in contact with the virus but at a much lower viral concentration. This allows individuals time for their immune systems to kick in and react by generating antibodies. Thus the symptoms from the infection are greatly reduced. Therefore more and more people are becoming minimally infected and building up immunization. In the fall when humidity levels drop again, a large portion of the population will have some immunity and the second wave if it comes will be significantly reduced.
_________________
Author of Practical Preparations for a Coronavirus Pandemic.
A very unique plan. As Dr. Paul Thompson wrote, "This is the very best paper on the virus I have ever seen."
06 Jun 2020, 4:28 pm
Brazil overtakes Italy as country with third-highest coronavirus deaths
June 4th: Brazil records 1,473 deaths in a day, with Mexico also registering over 1,000 as Latin American countries seek to reopen.
08 Jun 2020, 7:52 am
THE ACTUAL NUMBER OF COVID-19 DEATHS IS UNKNOWN
There are two fundamental points often ignored when referring to “the death toll from COVID-19.”
* There is no evidence or proof offered by any scientist, pathologist, or virologist that confirms COVID-19 as the “cause” of death in the certification process.
* An expanded definition of a “COVID-19 death” was enacted by the CDC on March 24th, to include probable cases. This conflates and clusters test results creating a source of both under and overestimation. “COVID-19 deaths are identified using a new ICD-10 code. When COVID-19 is reported as a cause of death or when it is listed as a ‘probable’ or ‘presumed’ cause, it is coded as UO7.1 [i]This can include cases with or without laboratory confirmation.”
All deaths of patients with a linkage to COVID-19 are now classified as “COVID-19 deaths regardless of cause or underlying health issues that could have contributed to loss of life.” - Dr. Deborah Birx
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Tracking mortality statistics for COVID-19 involves a moving target of guesses, projections, and revised definitions. Amidst an avalanche of expanding statistics, we need to put American deaths into perspective. On average, 7,700 deaths occur every day from all causes in the U.S. That amounts to 2.8 million deaths per annum. With no available data for 2019, the National Vital Statistics Survey (NVSS) estimates there were 25,000 more deaths in 2018 than in 2017, a statistically insignificant amount. The death rate in America stands consistently at 0.8% annually.
To make broad estimates, the CDC uses statistical models which it periodically revises. From 2013-2018, the CDC claims influenza annually caused 57,000 deaths and sickened 42 million Americans. Fatal complications from the flu may include pneumonia, stroke, and heart attack. While the impact of the flu varies, the CDC estimates that influenza results in between 9 million and 49 million cases of illness and between 12,00 to 79,000 annual deaths per year. This enormous range is not unusual with CDC statistics, because not all flu cases are ever reported, and flu is not always listed on death certificates.
In its annual mortality tabulations, the CDC combines influenza and pneumonia into a single category. This category typically averages between 51,000 and 56,000 fatalities, making it the 8th leading cause of death per year from 2013-2017. An estimated 80,000 Americans died of influenza and its complications in the winter of 2018, the highest death toll in 40 years. But counting influenza cases is problematic.
The CDC was “not sure of the exact numbers because flu is not a reportable disease in most parts of the United States.” ( www.hopkinsmedicine.org.) Furthermore, influenza/pneumonia record-keeping is affected by the fluid dates that define the “flu season.” That may fluctuate from October to May or from December through February, depending on the year. For instance, the CDC estimates that “between October 1st, 2019, to April 4th, 2020, about 24,00 to 62,000 people died of influenza.”
The CDC indicates that for 2020 up to May 5th, (or 35% of the year), there have been 751,953 deaths from all causes (roughly 95-97% of the expected tally). Influenza deaths accounted for .07% of all deaths, a number consistent for every year from 2013 to 2018.
The CDC’s Provisional Death Count for COVID-19 (May 5, 2020), lists 5,910 influenza deaths; 39,910 COVID-19 deaths; 67,372 pneumonia deaths; and 17,683 deaths from pneumonia+COVID-19. The remarkably high spike seems to have occurred due primarily to the roughly 56,000 deaths for this period, 0.07 percent of all U.S. deaths to May 5th, 2020.
The standard definition of an emerging disease like COVID-19 appears surprisingly loose. A cluster of characteristic symptoms (flu-like, common cold-like, pneumonia-like), possible contact with a previous patient, and a test result of uncertain accuracy are all that’s needed. Researchers should be able to find a segment of genomic nucleic acid in patient samples, proven by DNA sequencing. That has not been done.
The numbers of deaths attributed to Coronavirus have been counted haphazardly and incorrectly.
Source: Rethinking COVID-19 Mortality Statistics
_________________
Author of Practical Preparations for a Coronavirus Pandemic.
A very unique plan. As Dr. Paul Thompson wrote, "This is the very best paper on the virus I have ever seen."
08 Jun 2020, 8:10 am
THE LANCET'S COVID-19 RETRACTION
The Lancet published an article on COVID-19 and hydroxychloroquine based on data that no one other than one of the study's four authors had seen or analyzed. The data itself turns out to be possibly wrong, or worse, and no one else can see it.
Only one of the four authors of the paper had access to the data, Dr. Sepan Desai, who is the founder of the company Surgisphere that allegedly collected the data. The Lancet article indicates that he provided the statistical analysis of the dataset, which was subsequently discussed in the paper by the other authors. Since they had known one another for several years and had no reason to doubt his veracity, they accepted the analysis sight unseen. And while that approach frequently works in one-to-one relationships, should that be the standard for co-authorship?
"Mandeep Mehra, a Harvard University doctor who was a co-author on that study, said: "It is now clear to me that in my hope to contribute this research during a time of great need, I did not do enough to ensure that the data source was appropriate for this use. For that, and for all the disruptions — both directly and indirectly — I am truly sorry."
While this explanation is not quite "the dog ate my homework," it is not an apology. None of the three co-authors that retracted the paper, Dr. Desai, did not participate in the retraction, even looked at the data, and these are individuals that work in academic medical centers and who should be familiar with datasets from registries.
"The Lancet is a world-leading medical journal. We have a Journal Impact Factor of [b]59·102® (2018 Journal Citation Reports®, Clarivate Analytics 2019) and are currently ranked second out of 160 journals in the Medicine, General & Internal subject category."[/b]
You would think that peer review of such an august journal would be a significant hurdle to publication, you would be wrong. Like the co-authors, the peer reviewers clearly had no access to the dataset. Peer review meant assuming the integrity of the data is the paper, and merely determining with the subsequent discussion was logical and relevant. It was the rapid and intense objection to the data by Lancet readers that lead to "serious scientific questions have been brought to our attention." The retraction, written by the co-authors, indicates that the independent reviewers they brought in to respond to the serious questioning "were not able to conduct an independent and private peer review and therefore notified us of their withdrawal from the peer-review process." How refreshing, perhaps, this is a standard that The Lancet might wish to emulate. But more importantly, where is the mea culpa or at least introspection on the part of the journal? Perhaps they want to mount a Facebook defense, they are only a "platform" and have no control over the content of their publications.
The work of the World Health Organization has come in for a lot of scrutiny, often politically motivated, in the last few weeks. So I understand why in the face of the publication of the now-retracted paper, they put their hydroxychloroquine study on pause – first do no harm is an important principle.
"Before the retraction, Soumya Swaminathan, the WHO's chief scientist, told the Financial Times: "In hindsight, you can say maybe we should have asked for the database, we should have examined [it], but that's not normal, especially when it's published in The Lancet."
Ah, there it is, eminence over evidence. Just as some people believe that if it is on the Internet, it must be true, evidently we all fall for that fallacy. If the Lancet publishes it, then it must be true. Perhaps that was a strong belief in the past, but publication by the second most impactful journal now merits questioning. Swaminathan does indicate that "in hindsight, one could criticise "the failure to examine the database supporting the Lancet study, "but the decision was based on an expert group considering all evidence and making an informed decision with a view to protecting patients." And while that might be true, and I am sure that it is, the experts were considering the evidence available to them, primarily Lancet's peer-reviewed publication. They were not considering all the evidence; they did not have independent verification of the data – they too assumed that this was the Lancet's or the authors' responsibility.
The other great victims, of course, are you and I. The paper, when published quickly spread through the medical and mainstream media. It was from a reputable journal, and it fed or denied the now politicized narrative that hydroxychloroquine was or was not an effective treatment for COVID-19. It sowed doubt; it makes us less trusting in those we have entrusted with our scientific thought and publication. It fuels a belief for anti-vaxxers that there "Big Medicine," and they can't be trusted. It makes people that trusted the Lancet look foolish.
We need to take a hard look at this event. The Lancet needs to decide if they are a responsible medical journal or just a Facebook wannabe. The authors need to consider how they collaborate with others; the chain of integrity is no stronger than its weakest link, what checks and balances must be present to put your name on a paper?
Source: Eminence Over Evidence: The Lancet's COVID-19 Retraction
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This ties into jimmy m.'s 40 percent rule.
Most normal people have learned herd instinct. They travel with the herd. If their teachers teach them something they accept it without question. If a politician says, “the debate is over” or “there is a consensus”, they accept this as true in blind faith. They do this for convenience. But this normal approach also has a severe weakness.
Around 40% of what you read is outright false or a misleading narrative.
On one day, the New York Times might publish an article titled Latest research indicates coffee is bad for you and drinking it will cause you to die prematurely.
The very next day another newspaper publishes an article titled Coffee is beneficial and scientist have proven that drinking it will extend your life.
So which headline is true and which is false?
The correct answer is probably both headlines are somewhat true. However, as first stated by Paracelsus, the #1 principle in toxicology is, “The dose makes the poison.” This means that below a certain dose (probably about 4 cups a day) coffee is beneficial to drink and above that threshold it can be destructive. In general, if you drink a few cups of coffee a day or not, it doesn’t really matter in extending or curtailing your life expectancy.
So to understand the world, one needs to understand that not everything you are told, everything that you base your beliefs on (even science) is totally true and accurate. Stay alert!
_________________
Author of Practical Preparations for a Coronavirus Pandemic.
A very unique plan. As Dr. Paul Thompson wrote, "This is the very best paper on the virus I have ever seen."
08 Jun 2020, 9:12 am
THE EFFECT OF ALTITUDE ON CORONAVIRUS
There was an interesting study in the news today. From my perspective, it is known that viruses and bacteria are quickly destroyed by ultraviolet (UV) radiation. But the atmosphere shields the surface from the extremes of this type of radiation UVC or far ultraviolet. So as one travels from sea level to higher altitudes, one is exposed to greater concentrations of UV radiation.
High altitude offered resistance over the severe effects of coronavirus for some populations, according to a new study.
Those living at high altitude are biologically accustomed to lower blood oxygen levels, which is a fatal effect of the virus, scientists say. The adaptation lends better oxygen transport in the arteries, increased ventilation and higher tissue oxygenation.
The study was recently published in Respiratory Physiology & Neurobiology.
The researchers studied COVID-19 cases in the high and lowland regions of Bolivia, Ecuador and the Tibetan region of China.
Bolivia was one of the last countries affected by the pandemic, and one-third of its territory is extended at high-altitude. Meanwhile, the pandemic deeply affects Ecuador and half of its population lives in high-altitude areas. In contrast, the peak of the epidemic is over for the Tibetan region.
Scientists say the general prevalence of COVID-19 infection in Tibet doesn’t correspond to global trends. The region’s average elevation is 4,000 meters, or about 13,000 feet.
Study authors also noted a “remarkable” “low rate of infections in Bolivia’s high-altitude population,” which managed to otherwise avoid exponential infection rates seen in many other countries. They found COVID-19 infection rates at high-altitude regions in Bolivia are about three-fold lower than lowlands, and four-fold less COVID-19 cases were in high-altitude areas of Ecuador.
Study authors noted a clear indication of lower virus impact and infection among populations living 3,000 meters, or 9,842 feet, above sea level.
Finally, researchers also found high-altitude inhabitants express reduced levels of ACE2 in their lungs, a key binding site for the virus. A drop off in ACE2 expression in pulmonary endothelial cells may have afforded these populations some protection over the virus, study authors concluded.
Researchers also theorized ultraviolet radiation at high altitude may act as a natural sanitizer.
Overall, physiological acclimatization of high-altitude inhabitants and certain environmental characteristics were concluded to reduce the virulence of SARS-CoV-2.
Source: Coronavirus and high altitudes: How distance from sea level offers inhabitants leverage
_________________
Author of Practical Preparations for a Coronavirus Pandemic.
A very unique plan. As Dr. Paul Thompson wrote, "This is the very best paper on the virus I have ever seen."
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08 Jun 2020, 10:36 am
Satellite data suggests coronavirus may have hit China earlier: Researchers
Using techniques similar to those employed by intelligence agencies, the research team behind the study analyzed commercial satellite imagery and "observed a dramatic increase in hospital traffic outside five major Wuhan hospitals beginning late summer and early fall 2019," according to Dr. John Brownstein, the Harvard Medical professor who led the research.
Brownstein, an ABC News contributor, said the traffic increase also "coincided with" elevated queries on a Chinese internet search for "certain symptoms that would later be determined as closely associated with the novel coronavirus."
Though Brownstein acknowledged the evidence is circumstantial, he said the study makes for an important new data point in the mystery of COVID-19's origins.
“Something was happening in October,” said Brownstein, the chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and director of the medical center’s Computational Epidemiology Lab. “Clearly, there was some level of social disruption taking place well before what was previously identified as the start of the novel coronavirus pandemic.”
Though Chinese officials would not formally notify the World Health Organization until Dec. 31 that a new respiratory pathogen was coursing through Wuhan, U.S. intelligence caught wind of a problem as early as late November and notified the Pentagon, according to four sources briefed on the confidential information.
Because the origin of a novel virus is so hard to pin down but so critically important for scientists to understand, experts around the world are racing to uncover the secrets of the pathogen formally known as SARS-CoV2. The task for researchers is made far more complicated by the Chinese government’s refusal to fully cooperate with Western and international health authorities, American and WHO officials have said.
Brownstein and his team, which included researchers from Boston University and Boston Children’s Hospital, have spent more than a month trying to pin down the signs for when the population of Hubei province in China first started to be stricken.
The logic of Brownstein’s research project was straightforward: respiratory diseases lead to very specific types of behavior in communities where they’re spreading. So, pictures that show those patterns of behavior could help explain what was happening even if the people who were sickened did not realize the broader problem at the time.
“What we're trying to do is look at the activity, how busy a hospital is,” Brownstein said. “And the way we do that is by counting the cars that are at that hospital. Parking lots will get full as a hospital gets busy. So more cars in a hospital, the hospital's busier, likely because something's happening in the community, an infection is growing and people have to see a doctor. So you see the increases in the hospital business through the cars… We saw this across multiple institutions.”
The picture painted by the data is not in itself conclusive, Brownstein acknowledged, but he said the numbers are telling.
“This is all about a growing body of information pointing to something taking place in Wuhan at the time,” Brownstein said. “Many studies are still needed to fully uncover what took place and for people to really learn about how these disease outbreaks unfold and emerge in populations. So this is just another point of evidence.”
Disease ecologist Peter Daszak, president of the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance in Manhattan, said the Harvard study “is absolutely fascinating."
“You need to look at every possible bit of evidence, where it came from and when it emerged,” said Daszak, whose organization works to understand the origin of emerging diseases. “When we do analysis after outbreaks, we find that the diseases had been in circulation days, weeks, months, years before. I really believe that’s what we’re going to find with COVID-19.”
David Perlin, chief science officer at the Center for Discovery and Innovation in New Jersey, said he was intrigued by Brownstein’s research, though he wasn’t totally convinced.
“I think some of the methods are questionable and their interpretation is slightly over-interpreted,” Perlin said. “The problem is we only have a subset of data here. I always worry when people start drawing inferences from data subsets, cherry-picking data [like the internet searches]. It’s suggestive."
Starting with nearly 350 images captured by private satellites circling the globe, Brownstein’s study first examined traffic and parking outside major hospitals in Wuhan for the past two years. Among them were photographs snapped from space approximately every week or every other week through the fall of 2019. From the approximately 350 frames, researchers found 108 usable images, showing locations without obstruction from smog, tall buildings, clouds or other features that could complicate satellite analysis.
“It has to be right at noon,” Brownstein said, “because you basically want direct sunlight. You don’t want shadows to prevent our ability to count the cars.”
On Oct. 10, 2018, there were 171 cars in the parking lot of Wuhan’s Tianyou Hospital, one of the city’s largest. A year later, satellites recorded 285 cars -- a 67% increase, according to the data reviewed by the researchers and shared with ABC News.
Other hospitals showed up to a 90% increase when comparing traffic between fall of 2018 and 2019, according to the study. At Wuhan Tongji Medical University, the spike in car traffic was found to have occurred in mid-September 2019.
To ensure they were not reaching faulty conclusions, researchers said they took into account everything that could explain away traffic surges -- from large public gatherings to the possibility of new construction at the hospitals. Still, they said they found statistically significant increases in the numbers of cars present.
“If you look at all of the images, observations we've ever had of all of these locations since 2018, almost all of the highest car counts are all in the September through December 2019 time frame,” said Tom Diamond, president of RS Metrics, which worked with the Brownstein research team.
As an initial "validation" of their methodology of extrapolating information about movement through the review of satellite images, researchers said they compared parking lot activity at the Huanan Seafood Market in mid-September, when the market was busy, and after the market was shut down by authorities after reports emerged that the wet market may have been ground zero for the novel coronavirus outbreak. They said they found a marked change. “The images validate the concept that activity and movement is shown through the lens of these sort of parking lots,” said Brownstein.
The study has been submitted to the journal Nature Digital Medicine and is under peer review. It is scheduled to be posted Monday morning on “Dash,” Harvard’s preprint server for medical papers.
As of Monday the website for "Dash" appeared to be down. A spokesperson for Harvard Medical School told ABC News they were investigating the outage.
In conducting the project, RS Metrics, an intelligence-analysis firm that analyzes satellite imagery for corporate clients, employed techniques designed to identify and monitor changes in the patterns of life and business.
It’s similar to work done by analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, who pore over images each day to try to figure out what is happening on the ground – especially in places where governments restrict the flow of people and news.
Diamond told ABC News the Wuhan region was clearly experiencing a widespread health problem in the months before China’s government acknowledged publicly that a contagion was coursing through the densely populated city. That announcement came on New Year’s Eve when the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, China reported a “cluster” of pneumonia cases in its city.
“At all the larger hospitals in Wuhan, we measured the highest traffic we’ve seen in over two years during the September through December 2019 time frame,” Diamond said. “Our company is used to measuring tiny changes, like 2% to 3% growth in a Cabella’s or Wal-Mart parking lot. That was not the case here. Here, there is a very clear trend.”
Former acting Homeland Security Undersecretary John Cohen, who oversaw DHS intelligence operations during the Obama administration, said the new research suggests that COVID-19, which has already killed more than 110,000 Americans, was likely brought to the U.S. by travelers from Wuhan long before it was detected.
“This study raises serious questions about whether the coronavirus was first introduced into the United States earlier than previously reported and whether measures announced in late January restricting travel from China were too little too late,” said Cohen, now an ABC News contributor.
Satellite images suggesting a change in life patterns in Wuhan were also a key factor in classified early U.S. intelligence reporting.
In April, ABC News reported that the National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI) received word in late November that a contagion was sweeping through Wuhan, changing the patterns of life and business and posing a threat to the population. Sources familiar with the reports said NCMI, a component of the military’s Defense Intelligence Agency, based the analysis on wire and computer intercepts coupled with satellite images similar to those used by Brownstein’s team.
After that story was broadcast, the NCMI’s director issued a statement, denying that a formal “product/assessment” was generated in November. The statement did not address preliminary intelligence reports. When contacted Friday with the results of the new Harvard study, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, Jonathan Hoffman, said he had “nothing to add.”
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.
In response to questions about the new Harvard Medical study, the State Department Sunday again criticized the government in Beijing for withholding from the world community critical public health information.
“The Chinese government's cover up of initial reporting on the virus is just one more example of the challenges presented by the Chinese Communist Party's hostility toward transparency,” a State Department spokesperson told ABC News. “The Chinese government has a responsibility to share information on the virus and support countries as the world responds to COVID-19.”
In March, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post newspaper, citing Chinese government data, reported that the first case of COVID-19 could be traced back to November 17, 2019. In recent days, Chinese health officials have told local media that the virus likely was spreading before they realized, though they have offered no details.
ABC News sought comment on the new study from the hospitals in Wuhan that were analyzed, the local public health agency and the Chinese embassy in Washington. The only response received by the network came from the Chinese embassy, where officials pointed to a white paper released Sunday the China State Council.
“The novel coronavirus is a previously unknown virus,” the report documents. “Determining its origin is a scientific issue that requires research by scientists and doctors. The conclusion must be based on facts and evidence.”
The council also defended the Chinese government’s response, writing, “China has also acted with a keen sense of responsibility to humanity, its people, posterity, and the international community.”
On the ground, internet searches for symptoms associated with COVID
Brownstein said he and his researchers found the hospital-traffic data to be even more compelling after digging into internet search patterns. Around the time the hospital traffic was surging, there was a spike in online traffic in the Wuhan region among users asking China’s Baidu search engine for information on “cough” and “diarrhea.”
“While queries of the respiratory symptom ‘cough’ show seasonal fluctuations coinciding with yearly influenza seasons, ‘diarrhea’ is a more COVID-19-specific symptom and only shows an association with the current epidemic,” according to the study. “The increase of both signals precede the documented start of the COVID-19 pandemic in December.”
We've done previous studies where we could show that what people search for online is an indicator of disease in the population,” Brownstein said. “And we actually saw people searching for symptoms that might be related to COVID: diarrheal disease, cough. That was even starting as early as late summer.
“Now, we can't confirm 100% what the virus was that was causing this illness and what was causing this business in hospitals,” Brownstein said. “But something was going on that looked very different than any other time that we had looked at.”
Brownstein and his research team used satellite imagery in 2015 to investigate how health care systems could predict outbreaks of influenza-like illnesses as they occur.
“We previously validated this method of indirectly measuring disease activity by monitoring hospital parking lot usage in Chile, Argentina and Mexico,” said researcher Elaine Nsoesie, a global health professor at Boston University who worked with Brownstein on both projects. “Using the data, we were able to forecast trends in influenza-like illnesses over several years.”
For that study, the scientists reviewed nearly 3,000 satellite images from 2010 to 2013, again, measuring car traffic at hospitals. They concluded that traffic spikes coincide with an outbreak of influenza-like illness, so public health officials could use parking-lot data to help them prepare for something that could strain medical facilities.
“We are in need of new and innovative methods for predicting disease,” said epidemiology professor Anne Rimoin, the director of the Center for Global and Immigrant Health at UCLA, who was not connected with the research effort. “In this specific case, data on events such as increases in hospital traffic could serve as early indicators of social disruption resulting from disease. High-resolution satellite imagery can be extremely useful for understanding disease spread and implementation of control measures.”
_________________
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DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity
It is Autism Acceptance Month
“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
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08 Jun 2020, 11:36 am
Updated data from The New York Times showed on Monday that health officials in 20 U.S. states have confirmed rising case counts over the past seven days, with sharp spikes reported in North Carolina, Arizona and California. All three states, like most others in the U.S., have recently begun to reopen.
North Carolina saw its highest single-day increase in cases on June 6, with 1,370 new diagnoses confirmed. In a press release, the state's Department of Health and Human Services said the number of individuals testing positive for the virus increased by 10 percent, while related hospital admission rates exceeded 700 for three of the previous five days.
Health officials in North Carolina confirmed the state's previous high of 1,289 new cases on June 5, after reporting similar numbers on May 23, May 29, May 30 and June 4.
Arizona's highest single-day increase came on June 5, with 1,579 new cases, according to local news outlets. Daily case counts have risen steadily since the end of May. The Arizona Department of Health's latest report, published Sunday, notes a statewide increase of 1,438 additional diagnoses.
As daily case counts surpassed 1,000 throughout last week, the health department's former director, Will Humble, told KSAZ-TV (Fox 10 Phoenix) that Arizona's uptick in virus transmission was "predictable" because the state's stay-at-home order expired two weeks earlier.
California reported its highest daily increase in cases this past Friday, with 3,593 new cases confirmed. Public health officials also confirmed the state's previous single-day high one week before: 3,705 new cases on May 30. California's outbreak trajectory began to trend upward during the last week of May. According to the state's California Department of Public Health, officials have identified at least 2,000 new cases statewide every day since May 25.
More than a dozen other U.S. states have recently reported rises in daily case counts: Utah, Kentucky, Arkansas, Texas, Michigan, Florida, Tennessee, Washington, South Carolina, Missouri, New Mexico, Idaho, Vermont, Hawaii, Alaska and Montana. While Michigan confirmed its highest single-day increase in cases this past Friday, daily diagnosis reports published throughout the past month showed significantly lower numbers.
In Oregon, health officials reported the state's highest single-day increase in diagnoses on Sunday, with 146 new confirmed and presumptive cases. In a statement released alongside its update, the Oregon Health Authority partially attributed the spike in cases to workplace outbreaks, in addition to expanded testing, contact tracing and close monitoring of individuals exposed to others who have contracted the illness. The Health Authority said it is helping to address an outbreak at one business where 65 employees tested positive for the virus.
Most Oregon businesses, including restaurants, bars, personal care services and fitness centers, reopened on May 15, with virus mitigation procedures in place. The majority of state counties were approved to reopen pools, movie theaters, bowling alleys and other group-gathering venues starting Monday.
As of Monday morning, the U.S. has confirmed more than 1.9 million cases of the novel coronavirus since the start of the pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins University's tracker. At least 110,514 of those cases have been fatal.
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Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity
It is Autism Acceptance Month
“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
08 Jun 2020, 1:46 pm
Hi Jimmy M, I like your well researched posts and am curious how you find all these relevant studies and news reports. I rely on google and several news sites like CNN, FOX, NPR, and Newsy while fact checking with SNOPES. However, I don't come across nearly as many studies as you have posted. Are there any searching habits/advice you could give me? I find it hard to find reliable research articles among all the irrelevant information.
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AQ:41
EQ:86
Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 130 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 63 of 200
You are very likely neurodiverse (Aspie)
08 Jun 2020, 4:08 pm
Most times I do not go out of my way to find these articles. I have a small number of newsletter that I receive daily. When I get on my computer in the morning, I quickly scan these and those that I find interesting, I cite. Some of these newsletters include:
Not A Lot Of People Know That
American Council On Science And Health
The GWPF Newsletter
The SaltbushClub Newsletter
ResearchGate
Paradigms and Demographics
SpaceWeather.com website
Sometimes I see a news story which only provides part of the story, so I dig a little deeper and link several articles together.
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Author of Practical Preparations for a Coronavirus Pandemic.
A very unique plan. As Dr. Paul Thompson wrote, "This is the very best paper on the virus I have ever seen."
09 Jun 2020, 5:46 am
China may have known about the Corona outbreak and its potential for global pandemic as early as August 2019 which means they kept their dirty secret for many months longer than first thought.
https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavir ... 10c3025ca8
Wuhan Hosptital carpark in early October 2019
Wuhan hospital carpark in late October 2019
Andoras
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: 19 Nov 2014
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Posts: 61
Location: Dunakeszi, Hungary
09 Jun 2020, 6:23 am
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/healt ... 0960ddd896
Almost every 10th Sweedish people died? 
In Hungary we have far less cases and deaths for quite similar population.
http://abouthungary.hu/news-in-brief/co ... -deceased/
09 Jun 2020, 6:30 am
Not quite.
There were about 4,600 deaths out of a population of about 10 million in Sweden. That’s about 1 in 2,000.
Actually, about 1 out of 10 who tested positively for COVID19 died in Sweden. Many people who are positive for COVID19 probably weren’t tested.
Still too many deaths.
Yes, Hungary did much better.
